Critical thickness and strain relaxation in molecular beam epitaxy-grown SrTiO3 films

Abstract

We report on the study of the critical thickness and the strain relaxation in epitaxial SrTiO3 film grown on (La0.3Sr0.7)(Al0.65Ta0.35)O3 (001) (LSAT) substrate using the hybrid molecular beam epitaxy approach. No change in the film's lattice parameter (both the in-plane and the out-of-plane) was observed up to a film thickness of 180 nm, which is in sharp contrast to the theoretical critical thickness of ∼12 nm calculated using the equilibrium theory of strain relaxation. For film thicknesses greater than 180 nm, the out-of-plane lattice parameter was found to decrease hyperbolically in an excellent agreement with the relaxation via forming misfit dislocations. Possible mechanisms are discussed by which the elastic strain energy can be accommodated prior to forming misfit dislocations leading to such anomalously large critical thickness.